


Spar

by glorious_clio



Category: Star Wars
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-05
Updated: 2016-07-05
Packaged: 2018-07-21 17:24:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7396684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_clio/pseuds/glorious_clio
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke is desperate to learn the ways of the Force. Leia can't really help him there, but she knows how to wield a blade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spar

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lalalalalawhy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalalalalawhy/gifts).



She doesn’t usually do her own research, that’s what the librarian was for. And it’s hard for her to leave the Command Center for much more than a shower or a nap. But here she is, rifling through datafiles, looking for the trashy gossip magazine that Winter sends her coded messages in. Even if there wasn’t a message this week, Leia Organa knows first hand that reading between the lines of all the dirty Coruscant gossip columns is the best way to get intel. It’s not a habit, but the librarian knows her well enough to leave her be.

Why the Emperor lets them keep writing is beyond her, but he has a way of underestimating those he feels are beneath him. Gossip columnists being one of them. Mouthy teenage senators are another.

She’s scrolling through advertisements about making your skin purple (“not shown to be effective on scales, fur, or feathers, shades may vary”) when she is interrupted.  

“Leia?”

It’s Luke, all blue eyes, golden hair, utter guilelessness. No one else dared to use her first name. It was usually Princess, sometimes General. Never her birthname.  

“Luke?” A smile tugs at her lips.

“What are you doing in the research center?”

She adjusts to hide another advertisements for piercings. Coruscant has a way of looking utterly ridiculous; garrish pictures clutter her screen. It’s almost an embarrassing contrast with the starkness around them.  

“Uh, research,” she says, then realizes she doesn’t have to say _anything_ to this farmboy, he doesn’t have the clearance.  

But she likes him, and he is a hero after blowing up the Death Star.  

“What are you doing here?” she asks.

“Trying to learn about the Jedi Order,” he says. He collapses into the seat next to her, not that she’s invited him to do so.  

 _Manners,_ she thinks, and then _screw it._ She leans back in her own chair, kicking her feet up on her desk.  

“Find anything?”

“Not much.”  

“Did you ask the librarian?”

“What’s a librarian?”

 _Oh, Luke_ , she thinks. She pulls her feet off the desk. “C’mon, I’ll introduce you.”

She wouldn’t be able to find much, but he should at least know what a librarian was. What did they teach on his backwater planet?

Leia gets him set up and is reading her third trashy magazine when he returns to her side.  

“What are you reading?”

“Sorry, that’s top secret,” she says, hiding the database. “Did you get what you needed?”

He slumps back in the chair he was in before. “I mean... she did her best, but I didn’t learn anything new. She said the Emperor scrubbed the official records after something called Order 66, and that it’s hard to find credible sources.”

She shudders.  

“What was Order 66?”

She leans forward, “It was the directive by the Emperor that all the Jedi be killed, and it was pretty much the end of the Clone Wars.” She doesn’t know why she was whispering, they were literally in a Rebellion Center, but she had only been told of the Clone Wars, of the Jedi, in hushed whispers in her father’s study. It was a hard habit to break.  

Luke pales.  

“Some Jedi survived, but not many,” she adds.

“I wish there was someone who could teach me the ways of the Jedi,” Luke pouts.  

She resists the urge to ruffle his hair. There’s something about this boy that makes her want to reach out and tell him all her secrets, and at the same time, protect him from everything in the world that might hurt him. She carries so much, and she is loathe to put that on his shoulders.  The information she’s picked up about the Jedi Order is somewhere on the spectrum between History Lesson and Fairy Tale.  

“I don’t know much about the Jedi, or the ways of the Force,” Leia says slowly.  “I know they were negotiators and peace keepers in the old Republic. Highly respected, venerated, even. They were impartial, yet warm, or they were supposed to be. Respectful of all life. My parents used to say that Jedi didn’t even leave footprints so as not to disturb or crush life under their steps.”

Luke looks at her expectantly.  

“I’ve never used a lightsaber, either, in fact, yours is the first one I’ve ever seen. But I learned swordplay at my mother’s knee.”

The grin that lights his face is a million watts, and she grins back at him.  

 

* * *

 

He’s bad at it, at first. So was she, when she was learning. They both seemed to have the same struggles with form and posture. It’s odd how she knows exactly how to correct him. He holds himself awkwardly at first, but then, within the rigid stance, he finds his body relearning how to move. She’s proud of him, proud of herself for teaching him. She teaches him to block, to parry, to try and read his opponent before they attack.

He sometimes closes his eyes, “To use the Force,” he says.  

“You need to learn how to use it with your eyes open,” she reprimands, her own eyes watching his every move. She registers everything in a fight, including flutter of eyelids.  

“Open!” she shouts and they crash at each other, sparring slowly at first, pulling a rhythm out of Luke. It’s like a dance, melding muscle memory with improvisation.

“I’ll never get this,” Luke pouts one day, throwing away his practice sword. It’s little better than a stick, not very well balanced. It’s been a bad day and he hasn’t gotten the hang of an attack she’s trying to show him. The level of his frustration has been ratcheted up by the heat of Felucia, and she hasn’t been able to calm him; she’s exhausted from being up all night in the Control room.

He collapses near their gear, pulls out a canteen and drinks the water quickly.  

Leia comes over and dumps her own canteen over his head.  

“Hey!”

“Stop whining, Luke.” She sits next to him and closes her eyes, just for a minute.  

He must see the tiredness in her face, because after a moment’s pause, he apologizes. “I’m sorry, Leia, I know you’re doing me a favor.”

“I accept your apology,” she says, then yawns. “It’s been a long night. Give me a minute.”

She hears him pull a towel out of the duffle she brought.  

“We have to get better practice swords.”

“Will that help?” he asks.

“Probably. Maybe.”

He pulls himself up, and she can hear him ignite his lightsaber. It hums and whispers, like it has secrets. She frowns and opens her eyes.  

He’s following a warm up she’s taught him, testing the balance of his saber. She watches the steady blue light. She’s not sure why, but it fills her with dread. Listening to the sound is like... she can’t explain it. It’s like someone is trying to talk to her on a tinny comm, just out of range. She can’t make out words, just an overall feeling of desperation, fear, rage.

“Leia? What’s wrong?” Luke asks, shutting off the saber.  

The feeling is gone.  

“I... I don’t know. You said that lightsaber was your father’s?”

Luke nods, solemnly.

“Do you... does it ...call to you?”

He cocks his head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing,” Leia says evenly. “My exhaustion must be catching up to me.”

 

* * *

 

Rogue Squadron is back from a mission, and she’s taking a moment for a drink with Wedge Antilles. They don’t get the opportunity as much as she would like; they’ve both been busy. She’s tracked him down in the mess and she doesn’t even have to be back at Command until morning.  

He’s telling her a story about a gambling house he once went to in the redlight district on Coruscant, causing his chaperone to follow and get into more trouble than his charge, and she’s laughing so hard her sides hurt when Luke joins them.  

“Hi, Luke,” Wedge greets, sliding him a bottle of ale.

Leia can’t speak, she’s still laughing too much, so she offers Luke a feeble wave before wiping the tears from her face.

“Hi. Did I miss something?” says Luke.

Leia’s resting her cheek on the table now, hoping the cool surface will take the redness out of her face. She’s still chuckling when she says, “He got a 500 credit fine for taking a minor to a house of ill-repute!” This sets her off again.

“...Yeah,” Luke says. “Sure.”

Wedge laughs and swallows the last of his ale, then opens another bottle.

Leia composes herself and sits up. “Hi, Luke.”

“Hi, Leia.”

They clink their bottles together and take a swig.  

“Hey, Leia, what’s this I hear about you and Luke being on a first name basis?” Wedge asks.

“Why shouldn’t we be?” replies Leia.

“And what’s this about swordplay lessons?”

Leia shrugs. “He wanted to learn.”

“I have my father’s lightsaber,” Luke explains. “And swordplay is the closest I can get to Jedi technique.”

Wedge frowns. “I thought the Jedi weren’t allowed to have children?”

Leia raises an eyebrow. “Since when do people follow the rules all the time? You’re proof of that, Redlight Wedge.” She stares at him.

He stares back.

The two burst into laughter again.  

After a moment, Wedge calms enough to ask, “How is she, as a teacher?”

Luke gives the pilot a sheepish grin. “A little demanding.”

She scoffs.  

“In a good way!” Luke insists. “It’s not her fault, our sparring swords are terrible, apparently.”

“It’s okay, you don’t have to lie to me,” Wedge leans over, stage whispering.  

Leia rolls her eyes. “You’re just jealous that I was so good, and you were so bad no one would ever challenge you to duels.”

“Okay, now you _have_ to explain,” Luke says, taking Wedge’s bottle away.  

He sticks out his tongue, pulls out another bottle and opens it.

“Where are you getting all these?” Leia asks.  

“I have a cooler under the table,” says Wedge.

“Do you always roll around, stocked for a party?” she asks.

“Only when I have to keep up with you!”

“Ahem!” Luke says.

“Okay, so Wedge is two years older than me, but we were at university at the same time,” Leia says.

“Wait, how old were you when you went to university?” Luke asks.

“I was fourteen, she was twelve,” Wedge offers.

“ _How_ do you do university that young?” Luke demands.

“I’m really smart,” Wedge says evenly.  

Leia laughs at that. “You wish!” She turns to Luke. “It was kinda expected of us.”

“Little miss _Dauphine_ had to follow me to university.”

Her eyes flash at him, and he wisely doesn’t follow. They’re both skirting around saying Alderaan, around her original destiny.  

“Wedge is my cousin,” Leia says. “Distantly, I might add.”

He sputters, feigning outrage.  

“Anyway, dueling was strictly illegal on... at University, but it still happened. It was underground, but it’s a status symbol to be able to wield a sword well, even to have a few scars. People wore their scars proudly, and the dueling clubs sort of dictated the kinds of people you would associate with all through your life. My mother was a champion dueler and no one ever marked her. To show her status as a dueler, she instead had her dressmakers put tears in all of her royal dresses. Winter, Wedge, and I were in the same club, but no one ever challenged me. Of course, I always preferred a blaster.”

“You held a sword before a blaster,” Wedge reminds her.

“When did you hold a blaster?” Luke prompts.  

“When I was fifteen. I told my friends I was studying abroad. What really happened was that I went off-planet for a year of bootcamp and military training.”

Luke looks impressed.  

“It was necessary. _And_ I still graduated on time,” says Leia.

“Show off,” teases Wedge. “Teacher’s pet!”

She elbows him. “ _This_ one dropped out of University to go to the Imperial Academy, and then dropped out of _that_ to join the Rebel Alliance. Such delinquency!”  

He smiles at his younger cousin. “I know, you shouldn’t hang around such unsavory characters, Princess Leia.”

She laughs again. Luke joins in this time.

 

* * *

 

“Open!” she commands.

They’re not picky about practice space, and sometimes they draw an audience, especially when they battle it out in hanger bays.  They have a few onlookers now, but people have become pretty used to the sight.

Leia’s gotten stronger, Luke’s gotten better, and sometimes they spar just for the fun of it.  

She tries his lightsaber once and gives it back almost immediately.  On paper, it is better than the wooden practice sword she’s been using, but the vibration in her hand fills her with dread and she can’t articulate why. Besides, without two lightsabers, it’s pointless to practice with it.  

Their wooden swords clatter together, and she is struck by how childlike this feels.  

Luke closes his eyes again and to her surprise, is able to block what she thought would be an easy attack. Leia reigns in her self control and quickly considers.  

She swings around with a flourish, and notices his brow furrowing. He can’t place her in the Force and she attacks again, his legs, and he’s lost his balance and toppled over.  

He’s laughing as he hits the floor, though.  

“Open,” she says with a grin. She offers a hand and pulls him up.  

They’re both sweaty, and he’s now covered in dust from the floor.  

“Luke! Princess!”

They turn as one and Han Solo is hurrying towards them, carrying a black box, long and thin.  

“Where have you been?” Leia demands. Last she saw him, he said something about a job and disappeared in a rush. That had been three weeks ago.  

“Duro,” he says, reaching then.  “Well, here.”

He shoves the box at Leia.  It’s heavier than it looks.

Luke takes her practice sword. “What is it?” he asks.  

“A present. Open it.”

Leia looks curiously at Han. He’s excited about whatever is in this box, but his face reveals nothing.

She opens it, to discover a beautiful pair of Alderaani dueling rapiers.  

“Where did you find these?”

He grins, satisfied with himself.  “They’re good, aren’t they? The dealer said they were made by the swordmaker Wismew Masa.”

“No...” Leia says quietly.

“No?” Han says, shooting her a crooked grin.  

“Masa was... the best. Way more than good. Elite duelers used her swords.”

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Luke says. His eyes are flashing with delight.

Leia gently sets the box on the floor, kneels in front of it. One by one, she takes the rapiers out and tests them in her hand.  They’re dull, time has seen to that, and the hilts are tarnished. The grips are narrow, they feel good in her hand. The strong and weak are a perfect ratio, and the balance in her hand feels so natural, like the sword is an extension of her arm.

She picks one and offers the other to Luke. They are truly twin blades, she can’t feel any difference between them.  

She feels at home with her new blade. Han looks satisfied.  

Leia takes an opening stance. “Ready?” she asks Luke.   

“Open,” Luke says with a grin.  

Their fight is like nothing either of them have ever experienced before. Han watches with satisfaction, and a crowd gathers.  Leia wins narrowly, and she suspects Han’s made a fair bit of money off her.

She can’t even bring herself to care as she packs the swords away for later.  

* * *

 

They lose a battle. It’s pretty major, and Leia waits in the command ship for the survivors to come back to her before walking out in silence. Defeats happen, they’ve even happened to her, but she can hardly stand herself when they happen.

She goes out to a yard where she and Luke had been sparring just three days ago.  

Leia doesn’t know what she’s going to do when she gets there, and she stands in the middle of the grass, waiting. Primed for a fight.

The battle is over, the taste of copper lingers in her mouth.

A breeze flows, ruffles the grass, ruffles the hair that’s escaped from her too tight braids.  

She didn’t bring out the rapiers, and anyway, Luke is showering and probably going straight to sleep. Or perhaps having a drink with Rogue Squadron to remember those lost. She should join them, she should-

“Hey, Princess.”

It’s Han. She doesn’t turn, she can’t look at him.  

He comes around to face her, but doesn’t touch her. She doesn’t think she could bear that right now.  

“What do you want?” she asks, exhausted.

“To see if you needed anything,” he says. He looks tired too.  

“I need to punch some Imperials in the face,” she says.  “I need.....” She doesn’t know. “How are you with a blade?” she asks suddenly.

“Oh no, you don’t. I’ve never even _held_ one.”

“I could teach you,” she says, seriously.

His eyes gleam in the dark, there’s just enough moonlight to see it.  “Pass,” he says. “But if you want to throw a few punches...”

“Not at you. I’ve been awake for 36 hours, I should probably try and sleep.”

“Think you can?”

She shrugs. Adrenaline is rushing through her, but she doesn’t really want to take a sleeping pill.  

He takes a step closer. It’s jerky and unplanned, and she opens herself up to the inevitable embrace.  Without thinking, she’s crying into his stupid shirt, crushing his vest, just letting every emotion she’s been holding back out of her.  

He holds her, a little awkwardly, it’s true, but just lets her cry for the pilots she sent to their deaths for nothing.

She slows down her tears, and backs away from him. This was too close, too vulnerable.  

“Better?” he asks.  

“Not really.”

“Still feel like punching some Imperials?”

She’s exhausted, but she’s a soldier. Her training takes over, she can hear her own voice in her head, _open_.  “As a matter of fact, yes.” She turns on her heel.  “Come on, Han. We’ve got a fight to win.”

 

* * *

 

They are leaving for Hoth in the morning, and Leia and Luke decide to have one last fight until they move to a warmer planet. Leia doesn’t want to have a sword fight in a blizzard and hangar bays will be too busy to practice there.

Luke’s never seen snow, and she’s a little worried about him dying of exposure, but of course she doesn’t tell anyone her fears. It’s not like she can keep him wrapped in a blanket, protected from all harm.

He’ll get used to the cold, but now, they are both sweating and panting, attacking each other again and again, looking for any openings.  The hilt is warm and damp in Leia’s hand, and she slips- in a flash, it’s all over. Luke has disarmed her, she’s on her knees with his dull blade to her throat.  

“I yield,” she says.  

“Yes!” Luke says, punching the air.  

Leia’s grinning as she pulls herself up. She’s usually not the most gracious of losers, but is pleased that her student has finally beaten her. She’s too proud of him to feel bruised as she hugs him. “The student has become the master,” she jokes, kissing him on the cheek.  

“One step closer,” Luke says.  

“Indeed.”

“We’ll keep practicing though, right?” Luke says, worry crossing his face.  

“Of course! Keep those blades safe until the next time, okay?”

It’s the first time she’s given him the swords, and his eyes widen as she packs up the box and passes it gently into his hands.

“I will take excellent care of them, Leia.”

“See that you do,” she says with a smile.  

**Author's Note:**

> For lalalalalawhy for being such a good beta reader for the fairytales that I keep sending her. You deserves only nice things, and I hope you enjoyed this fic! <3


End file.
